TICKET touts have begun offering briefs for the Rolling Stones in Scotland for over £1300 a shot - three days before they go on general sale.
Major resale ticket outlets were hosting tickets for the summer BT Murrayfield Stadium concert at up to five-and-a-half times the face value as the Stones were apologising to fans on social media sites for delays in receiving special fan club pre-sale emails.
It comes a fortnight after the government brought in new guidance to protect consumers against ticket touting, including greater transparency on resale sites which was aimed at making concert-goers better protected.
And some fans who spotted the sales have already begun raising their protests to ticket agencies online with tickets for the Scottish show on June 9 not going on general sale until Friday.
Exclusive ticket pre-sales began for fan club members and those who signed up to an official mailing list were due to begin from noon on Tuesday but 40 minutes later the band's Twitter was apologising for emails being held up.
No sales seen by the Herald on resale sites contained tickets for sale with full seat details including numbers or the identity of the seller.
Adam Webb, campaign manager at FanFair Alliance, the music business campaign against industrial-scale online ticket touting said: "When 'secondary' tickets flood the market before the event even goes on sale, you can understand the frustration of Stones' fans.
"It's completely dysfunctional. In reality, the bulk of listings on so-called "resale" sites like Viagogo, Get Me In and StubHub are placed there by dedicated ticket touts.
"Given the pre-sale doesn't officially start until Thursday, and the public sale until Friday, you'd have to question whey they actually sourced them from.
"But for the Murrayfield show alone you can clearly see tickets being listed by businesses in Potters Bar, London, Manchester and even Malta. All at prices way, way above face value."
The Viagogo ticketing resale site were hosting Pit tickets for £1012 - £1362.95 with fees - while the face value was £400.
Get Me In!, which was also hosting ticket sales, is owned by Ticketmaster, one of the official ticket partners, which does not offer a presale till Thursday.
The site played host to sales of Gold Circle tickets for £949 (£1,119.66 with fee) at a face value of £249 and a ticket for a west stand seat valued at £99 for £550 (£650 with fees).
StubHub offer maps of seating that bear little resemblance to the official maps that contain a 'gold circle" where fans can pay extra to be at the front of the stage. StubHub said they would change the map after the Herald brought it to their attention.
It comes a year after a row over the ticket touting over the BBC Radio 6 Music Festival in Glasgow which have been sold for up to 30 times their face value and had been described as the "real rock 'n' roll swindle".
Tickets to see electro-pioneers Depeche Mode who played the 2,100-capacity Glasgow Barrowland were sold out in minutes with £30 briefs immediately becoming available on the Viagogo ticketing resale site and offered for up to £879 each.
The taxpayer-funded broadcaster warned fans buying resold briefs that they will be barred.
The touting comes despite a BBC warning that tickets resold for profit or commercial gain by anyone other than nominated ticket agent, the Ticketmaster-owned Ticketweb will become void.
The BBC then confirmed that they approached Switzerland-based Viagogo about the promotion and resale of tickets on their site which the public corporation said should not have been resold.
The new guidance, which does not come into force till April, puts the onus on ticket re-sale sites and platforms to provide more information around events, including location of seats or standing area. It also said that they should make it clear when the ID of the original buyer is needed to gain entry. It was feared that if it was enforced this would effectively kill the business of touts at gigs where ID is a stipulation.
The new guidance also insists on resold tickets stating any Unique Ticket Number (UTN) The conditions for the ticket sales produced by one of the Rolling Stones primary ticketing partners, AXS does not contain a warning of needing ID for resales. Conditions say tickets can be resold through an "authorised ticket exchange or resale facility" but does not publish what they are.
StubHub said: “StubHub does not set ticket prices – we are an online marketplace where people can sell tickets. It is the individual sellers who set the prices. The higher-priced listings are often posted by inexperienced sellers and do not reflect what the tickets actually sell for.
StubHub insisted that it was down to the seller to input the face value of the ticket.
Viagogo did not provide a comment and referred us to their website.
Ticketmaster and AXS were approached for comment.
It's not the first time Glasgow has been at the centre of a major ticket touting row.
In 2015, the Lawn Tennis Association warned disgruntled fans buying tickets resold by touts for the sell-out Davis Cup semi final featuring Andy Murray in Glasgow that they might be voided, after many complained that tickets were being swiftly resold for up to £1,399 each, over 14 times their original face value.
Fans had condemned the handling of the public sale for the big match against Australia at the Emirates.
Hundreds of tickets became available through resale and ticket exchange agencies including eBay company Stubhub for up to £750, Viagogo for up to £700, and the Ticketmaster firms Seatwave and Get Me In! for £500 and £750 respectively.
In November, Scots trading standards officers said they were considering prosecuting touts for misleading the public in the continuing row over the resale of tickets to popular music, theatre and sporting events often at inflated prices.
The revelation came as the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) raised "widespread concerns" about breaches of consumer law and said secondary ticketing firms could be fined or take to court following its year-long investigation.
In November, 2016 key people from StubHub and Ticketmaster faced an inquisition from MPs on the culture, media and sport select committee, who had been looking into allegations that touts use underhand methods to secure tickets at the expense of fans.
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